NBA 2022-23 Part 3: Big Buck Hunters

[Revering4Blue]

If you’re scoring at home, after the dust had settled, the Mavericks had traded Porzingis and Finney-Smith, a future First and Second - and still owe at least one more 1st to NY to complete their previous trade for Porzingis - for Kyrie and Bertans.

The very definition of questionable asset management.


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[M2]

The Lakers just coughed up a hairball at home against the Bulls. Next they're at Chicago, and they have a home/road pair of games against the Jazz before the end of the season. My take is they need to go at least 2-1 in those if they want to make the play-in.

[KoryMac5]

He's also dealing with a terrible team around him. The Kyrie move is turning out like you'd expect a Kyrie move to turn out. The front office has spent a lot of money on a whole lot of nothing. Can they get in on KAT? Hardaway and Bertans (only $5M guaranteed for 2024-25, so he's kind of like an expiring) match on price and Dallas could put their 2025 and 2027 1st round picks on the table. I don't know if that gets it done, but they need a a star who meshes with Luka. They've got about $26M under the cap if they let their FAs walk ($31M if that includes Reggie Bullock). There's not much to buy on the open market. Josh Hart is the only one I look at and think "he'd help." I like Hardy and Christopher, but those are probably their two best assets for acquiring vets who can help. Gonna be some tough choices.

Kyrie has actually been good with the Mavs from all reports locker room etc...its more they lost all their depth in the trade and the guys they have left outside of Hardy aren't good.

Cuban will rue the day he let Brunson walk...

Powell, Bullock, and Green had a combined 3 pts...which is awful for 3 out of your 5 starters.

Luka got his 16th T so he has to sit out next game...

Maybe Luka needs to be the one to adjust...Mavs have brought in both KP and Kyrie and it hasn't worked
It's a mess of a team their best hope is that their pick this year doesn't convey...and they get lucky

[KoryMac5]

If you’re scoring at home, after the dust had settled, the Mavericks had traded Porzingis and Finney-Smith, a future First and Second - and still owe at least one more 1st to NY to complete their previous trade for Porzingis - for Kyrie and Bertans.

The very definition of questionable asset management.


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Cuban is a good example of why owners should not have a hand in day to day operations of a team...this is an owner who has now let both Brunson and Nash walk...that's a depressing track record.

Same guy who has had the luck of having both Dirk and Luka for the last 25 years and 1 chip to show for it...

He may be a billionaire but like you said above asset mgmt of this team is not his strong point.

[Mutaman]

Yeah, that's Monday for Philly. Even if Harden is back, I'm not liking their chances given that it's the tail end of the road trip and the bench seems to have forgotten how to play basketball.

It will help if, unlike the Bucks, they can make a 3.

[M2]

Kyrie has actually been good with the Mavs from all reports locker room etc...its more they lost all their depth in the trade and the guys they have left outside of Hardy aren't good.

Cuban will rue the day he let Brunson walk...

Powell, Bullock, and Green had a combined 3 pts...which is awful for 3 out of your 5 starters.

Luka got his 16th T so he has to sit out next game...

Maybe Luka needs to be the one to adjust...Mavs have brought in both KP and Kyrie and it hasn't worked
It's a mess of a team their best hope is that their pick this year doesn't convey...and they get lucky

If the Mavs go into the lottery and win it, I think that will convince everyone on the planet that the ping pong balls are rigged. BTW, I'm for it. Side question: is even a ROY contender is a good fit for the current Mavs? Rooks are fun, but it generally take 3-4 years for them to push the W-L needle. I assume if the plan is to capitalize on Luka and that means some right now guys.

Just because Kyrie hasn't thrown a bomb into the locker room (yet), it doesn't change that the team is 7-13 since he arrived. DFS and Dinwiddie were core guys, and the team is giving up too much size and too many points without them. Agreed about Brunson too. Amazing how many of the key players who got them to the WCF last season aren't there now.

When I typed "Christopher" early, I mean Josh Green. All Joshes apparently occupy a singularity inside my head.

Luka definitely needs to adjust. He needs to let his team share the ball, but they've got to build a team that can do it. BTW, no way should he be All-NBA this season even with his sick numbers. I'm invoking the World B. Free clause on this one. There's plenty of excellent players on good teams (and they're generally sacrificing some individual numbers to make that happen).

[M2]

Big win for Minnesota at Golden State tonight. They applied the clamps and held the Dubs to 96.

[Kingspoint]

Warriors no longer pursuing compensation for GPII trade...

https://media4.giphy.com/media/l3q2S...giphy.mp4&ct=g

[Kingspoint]

The Lakers just coughed up a hairball at home against the Bulls. Next they're at Chicago, and they have a home/road pair of games against the Jazz before the end of the season. My take is they need to go at least 2-1 in those if they want to make the play-in.

That was Chicago's 6th straight road win. The Lakers should not have been an obstacle for them.

[Kingspoint]

Are you saying Portland's not a good team and that trading Josh Hart left the team without enough quality players? One of these days you're going to recognize Nurkic is part of the problem. Here's my questions:

How do you sort out Grant?
Do you keep Reddish or Knox for anything other than nominal money?
If Portland admits to itself it's in a rebuild (and I would list an inability to be honest with themselves as their chief failing), is it better to have Dame as a local icon who spends his best remaining years on a team that's probably headed nowhere or to trade him to aid the rebuild around Sharpe and whoever is coming in this draft?

There's major issues in Ownerships and the Front Office. To let Paul Allen's college roomate basically run the franchise since Paul Allen died, while having a major stake in team-direction influencing, along with the VULCAN suits when Allen was alive, along with whatever hair-brained instructions he left to his sister Jody in his will, places Portland in a position of being a rudderless ship.

Look at what we got for trading away Nance, C. J., Powell and Covington? We basically got the problem of Grant, who is now over-valued by management and a Head Coach that's clueless as far as his negative contribution to the team (the same as Simons). They just keep backing themselves into Corners (like when they gave Norman Powell that stupid contract, forcing them to use a 3-Guard Lineup with a Guard (Powell), who is short and never rebounds the ball, and is probably the worst clutch shooter in the NBA...he chokes constantly...and is always injured).

They just overpaid for Simons, a player who negatively impacts the game whenever he's on the floor. His every other month game where he hits 9 three's is overshadowed by his negative play on both ends of the floor. He's Trae Young, but without the floor leadership on Offense, or any assemblance of ball movement on Offense.

Nurkic is not the problem. The team is always better whenver he's on the floor. Nurkic's contract is also correct for what he contributes to any team, especially one with Dame on it. All of the DARKO stats back up that Nurk is one of the premier Centers in the NBA. There's no disputing that.

Sharpe is special. What he showed the last two games is a level of play that right now is far Superior to anything Simons has ever done in his entire life. He should be starting next to Dame with Ant off the bench or Ant on another team. Little came alive tonight (whenever he's aggressive, he's a positive contributor on both ends of the floor), but that never happens in the plodding Offense of Dame and Ant and Grant, mainly because you can't be aggressive Offensively if you can't get a stop Defensively, and those three are as bad as it gets. Dame isn't lazy, but the other two are, while Dame will at least Rebound the ball and is a very good distributor, making those around him better. Grant and Ant make others worse around them.

Portland will bid against itself, sign Grant, keep Ant, start Shaedon at the "3", out of position, but with three horrible Defenders alongside of him, so he won't develop, and he'll look bad as a result. A Starting Lineup of Watford/Nurk/Thybulle/Sharpe/Dame is a great 1st Team. 2023 lottery pick/Eubanks/Little/Knox/Reddish/ is a great 2nd team (though there needs to be a real PG to replace Little/Knox/Reddish for half of the 2nd Unit's minutes, and if Keon Johnson played like he did today, then that could be him. There's no Grant or Ant in this equation. Billups, unfortunately, is still in the equation. It's kind of like speaking about the REDS and expecting them to construct a team the way the Yankees do. The tools in the front office and Ownership aren't there to get it done.

POR played really well tonight. SGA's free trips to the foul-line where he's never fouled gave OKC the win. No other reason why OKC won tonight. POR played well because bad defenders and lazy playes were removed from the equation. Watford missed most of the game from a twisted ankle, so it was truly an entire team of 2nd and 3rd Stringers who outplayed OKC tonight. Had POR been able to put just one of Nurk or Dame on the floor, they win. If Watford had not missed most of the game, they win. Those who subbed for Nurk, Dame and Watford all played well, but any one of those three would have made the difference in the late flow of the game where the whistle-blowing took over to allow OKC to kill Portland's momentum for a long stretch of time, come from behind and take a lead, about a 12-point swing over six minutes of play, including forcing the removal of Little with his 5th foul early in the 4th Quarter. Little was on fire on both ends of the floor, and was the best player on the floor for both teams. Sharpe was 2nd best. Eubanks was 3rd. SGA was 4th. POR played great Defense against SGA all night long, but 15 free-throw attempts with at least 10 of them gifted, was the deciding factor in the game.

[M2]

So much denial. I'll leave it at if Portland brings back essentially the same crew then nothing is getting better, and that they'd have to attach a draft pick to Jusuf Nurkic to give him away.

[dubc47834]

So much denial. I'll leave it if Portland brings back essentially the same crew then nothing is getting better and that they'd have to attach a draft pick to Jusuf Nurkic to give him away.

Oh you mean, the same crew that's suppossed to go 55-27 this year and lose in the 3rd round in 7 games. That'd be a pretty good team....but not this Blazers team!!!

[Kingspoint]

Just like the NBA has done several times with Draymond Green in the past, Russell Westbrook in the past and others,.....

After the game, crew chief Kevin Scott said the officials made the right call in assessing a technical on Doncic because he used profane language, per Callie Caplan of The Dallas Morning News.

“Doncic was assessed a technical foul for his use of profanity directed at the officials in protest to a no-call that was correctly judged in postgame video review,” Scott said.

Apparently the NBA disagreed with Scott’s assessment.

[SteelSD]

So, no Embiid, no Harden, with Maxey really the only offensive threat the Sixers had all night, and after the Sixers emptied their bench to come almost all the way back from 22 points down...the officials- after setting tables for a reception hall full of home cooking all night long- STILL found another two different ways on the same play to screw Philly out of a shot at OT when they missed an out-of-bounds call on Jeff Green and then failed to overturn a terrible foul call. It should have been Sixers ball with about 15 seconds to go. Instead, the Nuggets got to shoot free throws to ice the game.

Good job Paul Reed- 7 for 7 from the field, all-energy, 9 boards, 2 steals and a block. Well done. Jalen McDaniels, with 14 points on 6-for-8 shooting, led the team with a +15.

The Sixers had no business being in that game that late without Embiid and Harden, starting Dewayne Dedmon and then coming back with him after halftime for God knows what reason, and a finishing lineup of Jalen McDaniels, Montrezl Harrell, Jaden Springer, Furkan Korkmaz, and Shake Milton. But they were, despite the Nuggets keeping their starters in after Philly waived the white flag, presumably in an effort to stat pad for Jokic. I'd say don't get me started on Jokic, but I'm gonna' start on him. The guy was terrible defensively. Truly brutal. Officials gifted him half his free thows, and about two thirds of his 12 assists were simply "hand the ball off, set a moving screen, and watch a guy take zero to two dribbles and put up a shot". The guy is a walking poster child for why NBA fans deserve far better analytics models that we currently have access to. It drives me nuts that the guy may be gifted a third consecutive MVP award, while watching guys like Embiid, Giannis, and Jason Tatum (to name just three) play much higher level basketball on a nightly basis.

[Kingspoint]

Oh you mean, the same crew that's suppossed to go 55-27 this year and lose in the 3rd round in 7 games. That'd be a pretty good team....but not this Blazers team!!!

Since that team never got together, we'll never know.